About 1Password security on Apple Watch

Learn how to protect your data when you use 1Password on your Apple Watch.

When you use 1Password on your Apple Watch, you can have quick access to items that you use often. Because you can access the items so easily, you can use longer and more secure passwords in circumstances where you might not have your iPhone with you.

You are always in control

Only items you add to Apple Watch will be available on your Apple Watch, and your watch must be unlocked to view them.

Your items are sent securely to your Apple Watch

When you first set up your Apple Watch, you pair it with your iPhone by holding your phone’s camera up to an animated pattern on your watch. The pattern contains an encoded secret that is used for out-of-band pairing. After your watch is paired to your phone, they exchange keys, so all future communication is end-to-end encrypted.

Your items are stored securely in the Apple Watch Keychain

When you add items to 1Password on your Apple Watch, only the relevant details from the items are stored in the Apple Watch Keychain. The title, type, and UUID are stored for each item. The following additional item details are stored for each supported item type:

Because the details are stored in the Apple Watch Keychain, they’re protected by your Apple Watch passcode, not your Master Password. To keep the item details safe, 1Password uses the kSecAttrAccessibleAfterFirstUnlockThisDeviceOnly attribute to store the information, which means that:

Your Apple Watch must be unlocked for the item details to be accessible.

Your Apple Watch must have a passcode set. If you turn off your Apple Watch passcode, your item details are deleted.

The item details cannot be restored to a different device.

The item details are not included in iCloud backups.

Only 1Password can access the item details.

To remove all your item details from the Apple Watch Keychain:

Open and unlock 1Password on your iPhone.

Tap Settings > Apple Watch.

Turn off Enable Apple Watch.

To remove the details of a specific item from the Apple Watch Keychain:

Open and unlock 1Password on your iPhone.

Tap an item and scroll to the bottom of its details.

Tap Remove from Apple Watch.

Protect yourself when using 1Password on your Apple Watch

Using 1Password on your Apple Watch is very convenient. Follow these tips to stay safe:

Turn on wrist detection. When wrist detection is enabled, your watch locks when you take it off, so your information stays secure. On your Apple Watch, open Settings, tap Passcode, and turn on Wrist Detection.

Be aware of the items you add to your Apple Watch. Storing low-value secrets, like your garage door and bike lock codes, in 1Password on your Apple Watch is a great convenience. However, because the items aren’t protected by your Master Password when they’re on your Apple Watch, you may want to avoid storing high-value secrets, like your bank and email passwords.

If you’re concerned that someone may attempt to wear your Apple Watch when you’re not wearing it, turn off Unlock with iPhone. When Unlock with iPhone is enabled, unlocking your iPhone will automatically unlock your watch when someone is wearing it near your iPhone. If you anticipate such a situation, you can disable that setting. On your Apple Watch, open Settings, tap Passcode, and turn off Unlock with iPhone.

Don’t jailbreak your Apple Watch. Someone with physical access to your watch could theoretically access your item details stored in the Apple Watch Keychain. However, that would require unlocking the device and jailbreaking the device (so that something other than 1Password can read the Apple Keychain Keychain data that belongs to 1Password). If you jailbreak your device, you are willingly defeating one of the strongest defenses against such an attack.